procacity

English

Etymology

procac(ious) +‎ -ity, from Latin procacitas.

Noun

procacity (usually uncountable, plural procacities)

1. (dated) forwardness; pertness; petulance; an instance of such.
   • 1624, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy: What it Is, with All the Kinds, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes, and Seuerall Cures of it : in Three Partitions, with Their Severall Sections, Members & Subsections‎^[1], 2nd edition, Henry Cripps, published 1638, page 541:

     In vain are all your flatteries, In vain are all your knaveries, Delights, deceipts, procacities, Sighs, kisses, and conspiracies, And what e're is done by art, To bewitch a lovers heart.

Related terms

• procacious

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “procacity”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)